Cohen Watch

According to people close to Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney oscillates between moments of dark brooding and optimistic survivalism. “He’s on the edge of his seat,” says one person familiar with his thinking.

Michael Cohen exits a New York court on April 16, 2018 in New York City.

By Spencer Platt/Getty Imagines.

“Hey, man,” a sanitation worker called out to Michael Cohen on Sunday, as Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and his wife walked north on the Upper East Side, passing by the annual Greek Independence Day Parade. “Hang in there, man. We’re with you.”

The remark came nearly two weeks after a dozen federal agents knocked on Cohen’s hotel-room door at the Regency, on Park Avenue, where he and his family have been living after a water leak last year in their apartment. The damage is, in some ways, a metaphor for Cohen’s life, which has since become a flood of paparazzi, cable-news scrawl, and court hearings. A search warrant, executed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office but referred to the Southern District of New York by Robert Mueller’s probe, allowed the F.B.I. to seize his business records, documents, and data from two cell phones, a tablet, a laptop, and a safe deposit box. The haul is reported to include materials related to payoffs made to women alleging sexual relationships with Trump during his presidential campaign, including the $130,000 Cohen says he paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. (Trump has denied the affairs.)

In the days immediately afterward, Cohen made a conspicuous effort to go about life as usual. Paparazzi trailed him from the Regency to dinner at La Goulue and back again, and waited outside as he had lunch at Fred’s. While his lawyers argued that the government should not be allowed to comb through his documents without his ability to denote privileged information, Cohen chomped on a cigar outside the Regency with a group of friends in plain view of the cameras. The spectacle continued last Monday, as hundreds of cameras waited to catch a glimpse of him and Daniels outside a hearing at the federal courthouse downtown.

That first week caught him by surprise and felt like a blur, according to people close to him. Much of it was fueled by adrenaline. By the time the sanitation worker stopped Cohen this weekend, however, a new reality was setting in. The paparazzi had largely moved on. Cohen enjoyed lunch at Fred’s and dinner at Le Bilboquet last Friday, unmolested by flashbulbs. People in restaurants still come up to him to ask how he is doing and give him pats on the back, according to three people who have spent time with him in recent days. But, they say, Cohen is defiant and beaten down by the breathless speculation that he might flip on Trump and bring down the presidency.

His days undoubtedly look different than they did several weeks ago. He no longer wakes up and goes into the office early, since the law firm where he had an office terminated their arrangement. He sometimes sits with an espresso at his usual table in Sant Ambroeus, with his phone buzzing and beeping. Sometimes they’re messages of support from old friends, telling him they’re behind him and that he is going to be some sort of phoenix rising from the ashes—that there will be book deals, movie deals, all sorts of offers down the road. More often, however, it’s reporters seeking comments he can’t give. For someone who relishes defending himself, staying quiet is not easy, the people familiar with Cohen’s thinking said.

Not being in communication with Trump also weighs on Cohen. The president did call him several days after the F.B.I. raid, and publicly said that what happened to Cohen was a “disgraceful situation.” But their relationship had shifted since Trump took office. Cohen, who sees the Trumps as family, has only visited the White House a handful of times, including the White House Hanukkah party in December and a stop-by when his daughter finished a summer internship in First Lady Melania Trump’s office. “At times I wish I were there in D.C. more, sitting with him in the Oval Office, like we used to at Trump Tower, to protect him,” he told me at the end of the summer. “I feel guilty that he’s in there right now almost alone . . . There are guys who are very loyal to him that would have gone in, but there was a concerted effort by high-ranking individuals to keep out loyalists.”

The two started talking again regularly in January, after news broke about the non-disclosure agreement with Daniels. The president would call Cohen during the day or late at night to discuss the matter, according to two people familiar with the relationship. One person said that Cohen advised the president not to tweet about the payoff or the resulting lawsuit—a suggestion that Trump has mostly heeded. Cohen flew to Palm Beach and had dinner at Mar-a-Lago twice in the early weeks of the scandal. (The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Things have been different since the raid. With no office to occupy, Cohen goes to the gym and restaurants. He watches television and meets with his lawyers. His e-mail signature still reads Michael D. Cohen, Esq., Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump. His moods oscillate along with the news cycle and the time of day. “He wants to fight this,” one person familiar with Cohen’s thinking told me over the weekend. “There’s nothing in him that wants to hide or back down.” There are moments when he is convinced that he is collateral damage in the Mueller probe and that he will beat this. There are times when he is overwhelmed by the mounting legal bills he already faces, and how they could balloon if he is indicted. “He is really confused. He doesn’t know what they could charge him with, but he’s on the edge of his seat,” another person familiar with his thinking told me. “I hope it’s sooner rather than later, so that he can stop this wondering. It’s a depressing state.”

It’s a state that is not allowing him much sleep. According to a source familiar with the situation, Cohen broods at night, pacing in his hotel room, worrying about how his legal nightmare is impacting his family. He wonders if there are people within Trump’s orbit who might have wanted to see him go down.

His mood has been buoyed at times. Besides the camaraderie from the sanitation worker, Cohen saw the fact that the Democratic National Committee did not name him in the lawsuit it filed Friday as proof that he would not be implicated in alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. In the suit, the D.N.C. asserted that Russian hacking into its servers, and Trump associates’ contacts with Russia, amounted to an illegal conspiracy. Trump is not named as a defendant, but Don Jr.,Jared Kushner,Paul Manafort,Rick Gates,Julian Assange, and Roger Stone are listed.

He was also buttressed by the behavior of his old boss. On Saturday, President Trump tweeted that a New York Times story depicting his belittling treatment of Cohen was inaccurate. “The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haberman, known as a Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will ‘flip,’” he said. “Michael is a businessman for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected. Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”

Cohen did not initially see the tweets until a former Trump official sent them to him, according to one person. Once he did, a person who had dinner with him later that evening told me that it encouraged Cohen. “He knows the president is in his corner,” this person added. “Even though they are not speaking right now, messages were sent. I don’t want to use the p-word. I don’t want to use it. I think the president was making it very clear that he is not abandoning Michael.”

That p-word, presumably “pardon,” came up on Tuesday morning, as Trump took questions during a White House press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. One reporter asked if he would consider a pardon for Cohen. Trump looked infuriated. “Stupid question,” he snapped.